Trent Franks: from arizona has a presentation that he would like to make in a window here for a few minutes and i'd be happy to yield to the gentleman period of time before we pick up the balance of this exchange. i yield he the gentleman from arizona. -- i yield to the gentleman from arizona.

Trent Franks: mr. franks: i certainly thank the gentleman. in the last hour i tried to talk about some things that republicanwere for but i made a commitment to give some remarks on the pelosi health care plan and so i really appreciate everyone's indulgence here because i feel like i'm taking more than my share, but i'll make these comments and then i will make myself scarce.

Trent Franks: if that will be all right. mr. speaker, only one week ago today on friday, october 29, speaker pelosi and her federal liberal democrats introduced h.r. 3962 but mislabeled the affordable health care for america act. the bill would more accurately

Trent Franks: be entit big taxing, big entitlement, pelosi plan for big government takeover of america's health care act. despite house majority leader steny hoyer claiming that during their press conference that the health care bill was part of an open and transparent process to reform our health care system, the american people were oddly prohibited from even attending

Trent Franks: the liberal democrat's pub less -- publicity rally on the steps of the capitol. mr. speaker, this really isn't surprising considering the democrats habit of frozing -- freezing republicans out of the process. mr. speaker, the new pelosi plan looks and sounds starkly similar

Trent Franks: to the democrat's first attempts at a big government takeover of health care, h.r. 3200. that is because essentially it is the same big government socialist nonsense speaker pelosi introduced months ago. the same plan that caused millions -- cause literally millions of american to speak out against it through letters,

Trent Franks: petions, protests and by showing up to register their staunch disapproval at town hall meetings throughout the country all summer and fall. and now it seems clear that the voice of americans have fallen upon deaf ears in this house of representatives, mr. speaker. and that ms. pelosi and mr. reid are determined to shove this bipartisan nightmare down the

Trent Franks: throats of the american people. in the contents of this 2,000-page bill as well as a separate 13-page bill that would increase the deficit by more than $200 billion are details that would see a massive federal intrusion in the health care of every american. for example, the pelosi health care plan creates 111 new fices, bureaus, commissions,

Trent Franks: programs and bureaucracies over and above the entitlement expansion. this includes, mr. speaker, a government-run insurance program that could cause as many as 114 million people in america to lose their current coverage. the pelosi health care plan also abolishes the private market for individual health insurance, forcing individuals to purchase

Trent Franks: coverage in a government-run exchange. the pelosi health care plan that would raise premiums and encourage employers to drop coverage. the pelosi health care plan enacts trillions of dollars in new federal spending that would exacerbate the deficit and imperil the nation's long-term fiscal viability.

Trent Franks: the pelosi health care plan also taxes all americans, individuals who purchase insurance, individuals who do not purchase insurance and millions of small businesses. mr. speaker, this will absolutely kill millions of jobs and raise health care premiums across the board. and, mr. speaker, the pelosi health care plan also cuts medicare by a half a trillion

Trent Franks: dollars. which will devastate the medicare vantage program and result in higher premiums and drop coverage for more than 10 million seniors and nearly 70,000 of those senior citizen yors live in my district -- seniors nive my district alone. it would eliminate 5.5 million

Trent Franks: jobs as a resultf taxes on businesses that can't afford to provide health care insurance coverage and this is coog according to the model developed by christina romer, the chairwoman of the president's own council of economic advisors. mr. speaker, in 2008 health care spending in the united states reached 2.-- $2.4 trillion.

Trent Franks: and was projected to reach $3.1 trillion in 2012 and $4.3 trillion by 2016. health care spending is 4.3 times am national defense. and now the congressional budget office has testifi before congress that the democrat health care plan will actually increase that already sky

Trent Franks: halt care spending. only weeks to go, mr. speaker, -- weeks ago, mr. speaker, president obama promised a joint session of congress and the american people that he would, quote, not sign health care legislation if it adds one d to the deficit now or in the future, unquote. but unfortunately, mr. speaker,

Trent Franks: that will unequivocally be broken by the pelosi health care plan. adding in the more than $200 billion cost of the unfunded 3961rks the health care reform agenda proposed by liberal pelosi democrats totals more than $1.5 trillion. nearly double president obama's

Trent Franks: stated figure. mr. speaker, that unequivocally breaks the president's pmise by increasing the deficit to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. as the projected cost of this bill and it's still a conservative estimate, given the historic precedent of

Trent Franks: draftically underestimating the programs. when medicare passed in 1965, the congressional budget office predicted it would cost $12 billion per year by 1990. in reality the cost of medicare in 1990 was $110 billion. more than nine times greater than procted. likewise, the medicare exp

Trent Franks: of the late 1987 was projected to cost $1 billion annually. by 1992 the actual cost was $17 billion 17 times the amount projected. what makes us think that a government takeover of more than 1/6 of our economy is going to be any different, mr. speaker? some originally pointed out that

Trent Franks: a nearly 2,000-page bill of over 400,000 words that costs as much as this one does, that that plan amounts to $2.2 million per word and there's lots of words in this bill, mr. speaker. moreover the pelosi health care plan is a massive increase in the size and scope of government. creati at least 43 entitlement programs, 111 additional

Trent Franks: offices, bureaus, commissions, programs and bureaucracies over and above the entitlement expansion. during the worst economic recession since the great depression, this bill would impose num number one, it would impose a 5.4% surtax that would primarily be shouldered by small businesses.

Trent Franks: it would impose a 2.5% penalty tax on those who do not acquire health care insurance. new and increased taxes on a wide variety of health plans including h.s.a.'s and this one kills me, an ironic 2.5% tax on medica and an 8% tax on businesses that can't afford to provide health insurance for employees.

Trent Franks: just to name a few, mr. speaker. bringing theotal to $729.5 billion in new taxes on small businesses. individuals who nnot afford health coverage and employers who cannot afford to provide coverage to meet the federal bureaucrat standards will all pay the bill. top marginal income tax rate is

Trent Franks: 35%. mr. obama wants to boost the top rate to nearly 40% in 2011 by allowing some of the tax cuts enacted under former president bush to expire. the new health care taxes imposed by this bill would come on top of that. this would mean that just the federal tax rate alone would be 45%. and when you add in the state

Trent Franks: and local taxes, individuals and small businesses could see total tax rates of close to 60%, mr. speaker. the cost of the pelosi government takeover of health care and the new taxes it would impose alone are a disaster of the first magnitude for america. but the monstrosity of the pelosi health care plan doesn't even end there.

Trent Franks: on september 9 during his address to the joint session of congre, president obama stated never baiten the following quote, one more misunderstanding i want to clear up, under our plan no, federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, unquote. but despite promises and statements made by the president to the contrary, mr. speaker, this bill explicitly allows

Trent Franks: federal funding of abortion and permits federal subsidies to go to private insurance plans that cover abortion. making this bill potential the largest expansion of abortion on demand in america since roe v. wade. white house health adviser is a long time proponent of rationing as a means for controlling and distributing the vital hate care

Trent Franks: services americans need and for all the furor over the death panels, a term that the democrats viciously mocked, it would establish a new, quote, center for comparative effectiveness research, closed quote. perhaps more accurately labeled, quote, a life and death panel, unquote.

Trent Franks: since the panel would allow, be allowed to deny life-saving treatments on the growns of cost saving. the same sort of raggingsing we see in britain's national health care service which routinely denies costly health treatments less worth saving.

Trent Franks: . this is government health care. depending and deciding who may receive care and who is forced by the government to go without and this should not happen in america. these quote, decisions, would be in the hands of president obama's new health czar or the health choices commissioner created by this legislation.

Trent Franks: the health czar or the health choices commissioner could forcibly enroll individuals into government-run insurance and would be required to conduct random compliance audits, alwing the federal government to intervene in the business practices of all employers who offer coverage to their workers. and that is unbelievable, mr.

Trent Franks: speaker. the pelosi bill contains numerous so-called sweet treats for the allies of the democrats. acorn and eligible for federal grants mr. aderholt: minimum sterd by the health czar and creates new incentives for the trial lawyers

Trent Franks: to sue the doctors and medical history into the stone age. speaker pelosi and her liberal colleagues are shamelessly sticking their thumbs in the mr. speaker, republicans have offered more than 40 alternative health care plans that would implement true health care reform in this country, empowering those who can't

Trent Franks: afford insurance with the ability to purchase their own policy from the private sector, allowing families and businesses to purchase across state lines and allowing trade association to pool together and acquire health insurance at a lower price such as large corporations and unions do, giving states the tools to create innovative

Trent Franks: reforms to lower health care costs and ending high costs. instead of listening to the american people and embracing these real solutions, speaker pelosi and her liberal colleagues have chosen to py indicate their liberal allies and to forcibly shove this bill

Trent Franks: down the throats of the american people. but you know, mr. speaker, in closing, all of the egregious things i have told you about, the worse is how it deals with the word shall. the word shall as we all know in this chamber is the keyworin government mandates. the word shall is government

Trent Franks: force. unbelievablely, the word shall appears more than 3,425 times. the obama, reid, pelosi federal government is using the force of law with the word of shall 3,425 times to steal the freedom of the american people and forcibly insert a bureaucrat between

Trent Franks: patients and their doctors. the health care plan is nothing but 2,000 pages of big government, higher taxes and literally thousa government mandates. mr. speaker, flying in the face of nancy pelosi's health claim that the health care bill she has would be posted on-line for 72 hours for review, it los like tomorrow this body will be

Trent Franks: forced to vote on a bill that will completely overhaul 1/6 of the economy and devastate our health care system all against the will othe vast majority of americans and i encourage every last one of them mr. speaker for the sake of their children and future generationso stand up